OCPA urges regents to end discredited training for teachers

OCPA urges regents to end discredited training for teachers

OKLAHOMA CITY (June 19, 2025)—Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs President Jonathan Small today called on Oklahoma’s college regents to end the use or promotion of teacher-training programs that rely on the discredited “three-cueing” method, which teaches children to guess words based on associated pictures rather than sound them out phonetically.

The three-cueing method has been criticized for years as research has shown it does not help children become literate, and in 2024 Oklahoma law was updated to explicitly prohibit the use of three-cueing instruction in state public schools. Many other states have also banned three-cueing.

However, Oklahoma State University’s college of education continued to promote a program that relies on three-cueing methods, the Reading Recovery program. After the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) drew attention to the program, OSU officials announced Reading Recovery was being phased out at the university.

“While it is welcome news that OSU plans to discontinue promotion of the Reading Recovery program, it makes no sense that the university’s college of education continued to tout this program after state lawmakers had expressly banned the use of three-cueing methods in state classrooms,” Small said. “Oklahoma’s college regents should act now to make sure no taxpayer dollars are used to support programs that perpetuate bad teaching practices such as three cueing, and if any such programs are still in place at any state college or university, they should be discontinued.”

A study published in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness in 2023 found that the impact of Reading Recovery on students’ reading/English Language Arts (ELA) test scores in third and fourth grades is “statistically significant and substantially negative.” The study found that students who participated in Reading Recovery in first grade had third- and fourth-grade state test scores in reading/ELA that were, on average, about one-half to one full grade level below the state test scores of similar students who did not participate in Reading Recovery.

The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs promotes the flourishing of the people of Oklahoma by advancing principles and policies that support free enterprise, limited government, personal responsibility, individual initiative, and strong families.